Justin Baldoni’s name is not going to be out of the courtroom anytime soon.
The actor and director, who has been embroiled in legal drama related to his 2024 film “It Ends With Us” for months, is suing insurers of the film for refusing to cover the costs of litigation stemming from the film.
In a lawsuit filed July 30 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, accuse three insurance companies of breach of contract for denying coverage of costs for a December lawsuit filed by Baldoni’s co-star, Blake Lively.
The case marks the latest wrinkle in an already messy dispute, bringing in new parties to try to sort out who’s footing the mounting legal bills.
The insurance companies named in the suit — New York Marine, QBE Insurance Group Limited and Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s — sold policies to Wayfarer, “promising to defend and indemnify” the company and its officers against, among other things, lawsuits like the one Lively filed, which outlines claims of sexual harassment, retaliation and several other charges.
Wayfarer Studios’ executives Steve Sarowitz and Jamey Heath joined Baldoni and the company in filing the lawsuit against the insurers. They were also named defendants in Lively’s suit.
The sprawling legal saga surrounding “It Ends With Us” erupted late last year after a contentious press tour and swirling rumors about a rift between Baldoni and Lively.
Lively accused Baldoni and his team of orchestrating a smear campaign against her after she reported on-set sexual harassment in the original lawsuit she filed.
Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit alleging that Lively’s accusations are baseless and have caused serious harm to his career, reputation and personal life, further escalating the high-interest legal brawl.
A judge dismissed the countersuit in June, saying it didn’t meet legal standards, marking a setback for Baldoni’s camp. But the case remains one of the most closely-watched Hollywood courtroom battles in recent memory.
The new lawsuit from Baldoni and his team comes after another insurer of the film, Harco National Insurance, recently tried to sever itself from the sticky legal feud.
Harco filed a lawsuit in New York federal court in July seeking a court order expressly stating that it has no duty to pay legal fees for the production company or its officers. Harco says in the lawsuit that the sexual harassment Lively accuses Baldoni of on set allegedly occurred before the effective dates of its policy, and that Wayfarer didn’t disclose possible issues that could have led to claims ahead of time.
The policies from the three insurers named in the new suit collectively carry at least $8 million in insurance, and the complaint alleges that the policies should have covered the costs incurred in the legal fight.
Each insurer sent letters to Wayfarer denying coverage, and Baldoni and his associates claim the insurers either did not conduct “any meaningful investigation” into the claim before denying it, or that they cited various inapplicable exclusions to the policy.
Representatives for all parties of the lawsuit did not respond to requests for comment, except for Lloyd’s, which said it cannot discuss individual policies or policyholders, nor can it comment on matters in litigation.
Read more: Justin Baldoni’s tumultuous road to the center of a Hollywood scandal
The latest development in the months-long dispute could color how Wayfarer and Baldoni move forward as legal fees continue to rack up.
Greg Doll, an entertainment litigator and partner at the Los Angeles firm Doll Amir & Eley, said while the vast majority of similar civil cases are settled before trial, the Lively lawsuit could be an exception.
“What happens in an outlier case is it gets intensely personal, and there’s public embarrassment, there’s public accusations, and then it becomes about standing on principle,” Doll said.
Baldoni’s side has deep pockets. Wayfarer Studios has been footing the legal bills in the Lively suit, according to the most recent complaint filed. Sarowitz, Wayfarer’s co-founder, co-chairman and leading financier who is also the billionaire founder of Paylocity, once allegedly said he was prepared to spend “$100 million to ruin” Lively and her family, according to Lively’s complaint.
Read more: Who’s who in the ‘It Ends With Us’ controversy
“Other companies, you could say they’re going to live and die by the insurance coverage because they don’t have any assets of their own. They’re going to be scared,” Doll said. “This doesn’t appear to be that situation.”
But as legal bills mount and the case only becomes more tangled, sorting out what coverage Baldoni’s side could get from its insurers makes sense, Doll said, even despite the ample funding they have. Without coverage, it’s a “much more complex negotiation,” he added.
“That becomes a different sort of calculus [for them] about how much of our own money are we willing to spend in settlement, or how much we’re willing to roll the dice and fight knowing that our own money might be at stake,” Doll said.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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